When picking a vacation to a snowy, winter getaway, it’s important to know what you’re going to encounter.

From the type of terrain to the selection of chutes – wouldn’t it be great to know what to expect before you hit the slopes?

Well, thanks to Google  Maps, you can check out the slopes using Streetview – although they should really call it Slopeview.

While Google Maps is great for telling you how long a journey is expected to take, those estimates left traffic out of the equation.

Although it might appear like a 20 minute journey on the screen, traffic – in reality – would make it a 35 or 40 minute journey.

Google has stepped in to remedy that problem by introducing real-time traffic estimates when you search for directions between destinations.

Have you ever followed GPS driving directions, only to end up in a shady area of town?  Sure, it may have been the shortest route, but perhaps not one you would take again.

Well, Microsoft is working to create a GPS system that would avoid dangerous areas of a city, or places with bad weather.

Spring is here, and the sun is shining. It's time to tear yourself away from that keyboard and stumble, pale and blinking, into the sun. With such a wealth of natural pleasures here in Canada and the US, it would be a crime not to get some healthy outdoorsy exercise.

iPhone and 3G-enabled iPad users beware: your device is tracking your every move, and keeps a record of where you are, all the time, in a file that it stores unencrypted on the device, and on your computer.

By now you’ve probably heard about weird, freaky, mass animal deaths being reported around the world.

And if you lost track of all the flocks of birds or schools of fish that have wound up dead, there’s now a way to track the unfortunate activity with a custom Google Map.

Shoe giant Nike has had a remarkable run with the Nike + iPod product line – and they’ve upped the ante with the debut of the Nike + SportWatch GPS at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show here in Las Vegas.

Launched in 2006 in conjunction with its Nikeplus.com website, it was one of the first products to realize the potential of iPod peripherals, allowing runners to track pace, time and distance all while enjoying music on their iPod devices.

The big day is here and it’s time for Santa to go all around the world delivering toys to good boys and girls.

Even though you’re not supposed to see him when he comes down the chimney and delivers gifts under the tree, there’s a way to track jolly old Saint Nick as he travels across the world.

For starters – everything is going according to plan for Santa’s big journey.

The directionally challenged may want to think twice about trusting their GPS units after one Ontario woman reportedly followed the gadget's directions and wound up way off the beaten trail.

Amid all the iPhone madness yesterday, Steve Jobs there was another significant announcement at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference: Safari 5.0. The launch is an important one because of the features that the browser includes -- and the bits of the web that it excludes.